Corn is a major food staple that has been continuously refined through the development of hybrid varieties. To date the ovewhelming majority of corn grown is dent corn. Dent corn is characterized by a starch composition that is about seventy-five percent amylopectin and about twenty-five percent amylose. Amylopectin is a branch-chained polysaccharide, whereas amylose is a straight-chain polysaccharide. Hybrid corns are available wherein the starch composition is essentially all amylopectin. These hybrids are referred to as waxy corns. The varying amounts of amylopectin and amylose in the starch compositions of dent and waxy corns produce substantially different characteristics. Thus, dent and waxy corns are not considered to be interchangeable materials for most applications.
To date, waxy corn is utilized in food products only to the extent that various wet milling tecniques, well-known to those skilled in the art, are used to isolate amylopectin starch from the corn, which starch alone is used as a raw ingredient for foods. Generally these wet milling techniques include grinding, flotation to remove the germ of the kernels, screening to remove fiber, and centrifugation to separate protein from starch.
Numerous examples may be cited where amylopectin starch is isolated from waxy corn and then incorporated into food products. The isolated amylopectin starch is recognized to form heavy-bodied pastes that are sensitive to shear. The pastes possess high clarity and reduced gelation tendency.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,027,258, to Markakis et al., describes a synthetic chip-type food product obtained from a dough comprising between forty-four and sixty-three weight percent gelatinized amylopectin and between twenty and twenty-five weight percent vital gluten, the balance being inert ingredients such as amylose starch fragments of wheat, corn, potato or tapioca starch.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,407,070, to Murray et al., there are disclosed ready-to-eat food products which comprise a farinaceous base and a high amylose starch product. The farinaceous base may be a low amylose starch such as that derived from waxy maize. Murray et al. specifically state that the low amylose (high amylopectin) starch does not, by itself, produce a satisfactory food product, but rather a product displaying defects such as poor shaping, poor extrusion handling, poor set, fragile texture and lack of crispiness when cooked. Thus, Murray et al. teach away from the use of a predominant amount of starch derived from waxy corn as a raw material for read-to-eat food products.
Marotta et al. disclose in U.S. Pat. No. 3,652,294, a process for preparing a ready-to-eat food product having, as a major component, a pre-gelatinized starch containing no more than five weight percent vital gluten, which starch may be waxy maize starch. The major component starch is present in an amount of at least fifty weight percent of the total food product. Other components include colorants and flavorants as well as cereal starches. The claimed process includes the step of mixing a dry pregelatinized starch with between eighteen and thirty weight percent water prior to compressing the blend into a shape.
As can be seen from the above references, the utilization of waxy corn as a food product has been generally limited. What is lacking in the area of waxy corn utilization are food products that are predominantly based on waxy corn and that incorporate about the whole waxy corn kernel, as well as efficient processes for the production of such waxy corn products.
Thus, it is one object of the present invention to provide novel food products that predominantly comprise waxy corn.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide novel food products that incorporate about the whole waxy corn kernel.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide processes for making novel food products that incorporate about the whole waxy corn kernel in the product.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent from the following description and the appended claims.